I. Karl Marx (1818-1883): The Connection between Modes of Production and Culture

A. Grundrisse (Foundations of Political Economy) and Precapitalist Economic Formations (1857-8)
B. Goal: laws and mechanisms propelling economic development, appearance of capitalism
C. Mechanism: change in the social relations of production

1. Historical stages result from relations to property, means of production
2. Work creates human consciousness
3. Consciousness is created by social existence: "The mode of production in material life determines the general characteristics of the social, political, and spiritual processes of life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness" (The Critique of Political Economy, 11-12).
4. Two aspects of society

a. Economic base, infrastructure: tools, technologies, skills, social groups, relations of production (inequality, classes)
b. Superstructure

1. legal and political system
2. ideological superstructure: religion, ideology which justifies economic system

D. Infrastructure determines superstructure
E. Contradictions between superstructure and infrastructure propel history

 

II. Lewis Henry Morgan's (1818-1881) Anthropological Support for Marx

A. Darwin and evolution of human society
B. Morgan, Ancient Society (1877)

1. Kinship naming systems reflect past conceptions of biological relatedness
2. Evolution of kinship systems from simple to complex
3. Society develops through development of "arts of subsistence" and accumulation of knowledge
4. Three stages of human civilization

Stage	Technology	Marriage System
Savagery	hunting/gathering	primitive promiscuity, group marriage
Barbarism	tools, agriculture, animal husbandry	pairing marriage, polygamy
Civilization	industry, writing	monogamy

5. Morgan interested in details, not theory

 

III. Engels Interprets Morgan

A. The Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State (1884)
B. Uses Marx's notes to interpret, simplify Morgan
C. Morgan: who and what; Engels: how and why
D. Evolution of family structures = narrowing of marriage to one man, one woman pair

1. Savagery: group marriage, no jealousy

a. incest avoidance "naturally" occurs
b. pairing family, women respected
c. women "naturally" want monogamy

2. Barbarism: pairing marriage develops

a. domestication of animals, agriculture ==> property
b. men enforce monogamy to ensure paternity, transmission of property, "world historical defeat of the female sex" (120)
c. patriarchal family, women as property

3. Civilization: monogamy is victorious

a. men = property-owning class
b. women = domestic slaves, proletariat
c. eliminate private property ==> equality between sexes, individual sex love

E. Issues to consider about Engels (and Morgan)

1. Do kin terms reflect conceptions of biological relationship?
2. Assumptions about simple and complex, path of evolution
3. Assumptions about what is natural: incest, sex drives

 

 

For more information, contact: aleshkow@holycross.edu